The observational roots of reference of the semantic web

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Shared reference is an essential aspect of meaning. It is also indispensable
for the semantic web, since it enables to weave the global graph,
i.e., it allows different users to contribute to an identical referent. For example,
an essential kind of referent is a geographic place, to which users
may contribute observations. We argue for a human-centric, operational approach
towards reference, based on respective human competences. These
competences encompass perceptual, cognitive as well as technical ones, and
together they allow humans to inter-subjectively refer to a phenomenon in
their environment. The technology stack of the semantic web should be
extended by such operations. This would allow establishing new kinds of
observation-based reference systems that help constrain and integrate the
semantic web bottom-up.